Milestones
ELECTED. DR. JONG WOOK LEE, 58, South Korean infectious-disease expert, as director general of the World Health Organization; in Geneva. Lee, a 19-year veteran of the WHO, will begin his five-year term in July. After his election at the organization's annual meeting, Lee announced that the WHO would set up a $200 million fund to fight severe acute respiratory syndrome, or sars.
RESIGNED. ARI FLEISCHER, 42, CHRISTIE TODD WHITMAN, 56, and TOMMY FRANKS, 57; from top Bush administration posts; in Washington. Fleischer will step down to work in the private sector after two-and-a-half years as press secretary, serving as the President's relentlessly on-message and sometimes unctuous spokesman on everything from the Enron scandals to the war in Iraq. Whitman, perennially sidelined chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, said she and her husband were tired of having a "commuter" marriage. Franks, the Army general who commanded U.S. forces during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is retiring after 36 years in the military. "My wife reminds me frequently of how long I've worn (the uniform)," he said.
SENTENCED. MASAKUNI MURAKAMI, 70, former Japanese labor minister, to 26 months in jail for taking bribes from an insurance company; in Tokyo. The former Liberal Democratic Party kingmaker was fined nearly $624,000, the amount he received for performing favors for the company, including asking questions in the Diet to promote one of the insurer's projects.
ADOPTED. FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO CONTROL, an anti-smoking treaty, the first-ever international public health measure; by 192 members of the World Health Organization; in Geneva. The convention binds its signatories to strict regulations on the advertising and sale of tobacco products within five years in an effort to reduce an annual toll of five million smoking-related deaths.
DIED. IRENE GUT OPDYKE, 81, Polish-born author whose 1999 memoir, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, told how she saved the lives of 12 Jews during World War II by becoming the mistress of a 70-year old German officer; in California. Opdykea devout Catholiclater said, "It was a small price to pay." In 1982 she was recognized by the Holocaust memorial in Israel as "Righteous Among the Nations," the highest honor awarded to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews.
ACQUITTED. BRIGADIER GENERAL TONO SURATMAN, 51, former commander of the Indonesian military in East Timor during the lead-up to a plebiscite on independence in 1999, of alleged human-rights violations; in Jakarta. Suratman was the 12th accused officer to be set free in a series of highly publicized trials.
Numbers
$8,000 is how much former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney donated to send Toto, an abused circus chimpanzee, to live at a Zambian wildlife refuge
750 signboards depicting bikini-clad supermodel Heidi Klum have been stolen in Germany by souvenir hunters. Ad agency JC Decaux is handing out free versions so fans will stop the Klum-tomania
$3.48 million was the winning bid for the working manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at a Sotheby's auction in London
20 million commemorative stamps featuring Prince William will be sold in the U.K. to mark his 21st birthday
70 is the age of Yuichiro Miura of Japan, who this month became the oldest person ever to climb Mount Everest
$680 million is the value of the contract awarded to Bechtel for rebuilding Iraq, most of which the U.S. firm plans to subcontract
Omen
The World Health Organization has warned that summer flooding in China could result in a surge of SARS. Overflowing sewage can spread the virus, which survives for days in human waste
Most Popular »
- Let Down by a Tiger We Never Knew
- The Stolen E-Mails: Has 'Climategate' Been Overblown?
- How Strong Is the Evidence Against Amanda Knox?
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late
- Five Flawed Assumptions of Obama's Afghan Surge
- Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting
- The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell
- Jerusalem: A Growing Powder Keg in Mideast
- Did Amanda Knox Get a Fair Murder Trial?
- The Stolen E-Mails: Has 'Climategate' Been Overblown?
- Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late
- Max Baucus and His Women
- Why Has Taiwan's Birthrate Dropped So Low?
- Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting
- Workers of the World vs. China Inc.
- Astronomers Spy a New Planet-Like Object
- Morales' Big Win: Voters Ratify His Remaking of Bolivia
- Let Down by a Tiger We Never Knew
- Did Amanda Knox Get a Fair Murder Trial?





RSS